By Jess Clarke
In high school, Shayne O’Reilly ’06 participated in a science and engineering program organized by AT&T and Lucent Technologies on Saturdays. One week, an AT&T patent attorney talked and distributed copies of a cell phone patent.
The presentation set the course for O’Reilly’s future.
As a junior electrical engineering major in college, he came across his copy of the patent, a discovery that led him to pursue law school and a legal career. Now he draws on his engineering background in his role as head of licensing and open source at Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook.
“I’ve loved technology since I was a kid,” O’Reilly says. “Being in a position where every day involves emerging technologies is very exciting for me.”
He handles open-source software issues, merger and acquisition deals and technology transaction agreements with computer hardware and gaming businesses and others. “We’re acquiring companies that are helping us build our future devices,” O’Reilly says.
He manages a team of about 20 people, mostly engineers and lawyers.
“Working with others and helping them grow and develop their careers gets me the most excited about the job, that and being in a position where we can work with some awesome emerging technology,” he says. Before his current position, he was Meta’s associate general counsel for intellectual property (IP) litigation.
Until he joined Meta in 2018, O’Reilly was an intellectual property attorney for several law firms. “I was close to new technologies, supporting and helping the engineers that were creating that technology and finding ways to protect it,” he says.
Why leave private practice?
Although it was rewarding, O’Reilly was frustrated sometimes by the short-term nature of the work — immersion in a big case for a great client and then it ended, and he was on another case for a different client. He was drawn to Meta “to be in a role where I could really focus on one client,” he says, “one company with a singular mission that it’s moving forward.”
O’Reilly’s experiences at Carolina Law prepared him to move forward in his career.
“They have helped me really step back and look at issues critically and understand how to deal with ambiguity. That’s been very useful to me,” he says. And his patent and intellectual property courses “provided a strong foundation in my understanding of IP that I have been able to build on in my career.”
“They have helped me really step back and look at issues critically and understand how to deal with ambiguity. That’s been very useful to me.”
Shayne o’reilly on his experiences at Carolina Law
He chose Carolina Law because of its reputation for providing a top-notch education and because he had friends who were already students.
O’Reilly advises Carolina Law students to create a network of classmates to stay connected with after graduation. “Spend time getting to know your peers and developing those relationships that will span your career,” he says. “It’s surprising how valuable the relationships can be to you.”
O’Reilly is proof of that. One of his most important takeaways from Carolina Law is the network he developed there, which has had the biggest impact on his career.
His Carolina Law friend Wilson White ’06, recruited him to Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton LLP in Atlanta in 2011. White, now vice president for government affairs and public policy at Google, “has been a very strong driver of me in my career,” O’Reilly says.
Carolina Law alumnus Wab Kadaba ’97, whom O’Reilly met after he graduated from law school, has been a valued mentor for him over the years. Kadaba heads the global intellectual property group at Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton.
Now O’Reilly helps position law students to network and make connections that could be pivotal in their careers. His role at Meta includes overseeing academic collaborations with universities, which gives him the opportunity to help advance diversity in the legal profession.
O’Reilly, who received a National Bar Association Diversity in Tech Award, is particularly invested in that aspect of his work.
Earlier in his career, he typically was the only minority lawyer represented in the patent and intellectual property law circles he was in. “We have a very diverse team at Meta,” he says, “but when I go to conferences or other external events, I still tend to find myself one of the few Black IP lawyers in the room.”
He has made room at the table for underrepresented law students with the Meta 1L Legal Diversity Summer Associate Program he co-created three years ago and now co-chairs.
Thirty students work for eight weeks at one of 20 law firms that partner with Meta in the program, and they spend two weeks at Meta. At the social media company, students shadow Meta attorneys on a variety of teams, receive mentoring and guidance, and attend seminars on professional development and other topics.
The program is open to women, minorities, veterans, LGBT students and people with disabilities. Associates have included a Carolina Law student.
“It’s great when a student has gone through the 1L summer program and talks about how it has been life-changing for them as they consider their future careers. That’s the reward, knowing we’re having a positive impact on the careers of these bright law students,” says O’Reilly, who co-chairs Meta’s legal department’s Black affinity group working from his Atlanta home.
The new IP/Tech Scholarship Program O’Reilly co-created with Goodwin Procter LLP will provide $20,000 scholarships to seniors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who plan a career in intellectual property or technology law. This fall, four engineering students will receive scholarships from Goodwin and spend time at the law firm and Meta.
At this point in his career, O’Reilly is driven to help law students and the legal field by diversifying the profession’s ranks.
“Thankfully, I’m in a position where I have the influence and ability to help…try to remedy any problems I see with the profession,” he says. “If I’m passionate about something, I’m going to act. I have a great platform, and I have support from Meta’s management and leaders to act.”
